The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by ragman1
    I may appear to have but, if it was analysed, I doubt it. Or it was just chance. We're not talking about a sudden phrase or note but about playing a whole tune, or a section of one. You don't play a chance note, or a few notes, 'by ear'. Playing by ear is longer than that.
    When doing all of the impro by ear, the ideal would be with good sound, total focus, nothing external bugging at that moment. And also - most strange - the harmony itself may not even be completely internalized. This doesn't happen too often sadly. Anyway, when this happens to be the case, it's possible to create something really new and beautiful. New in a sense that the whole thing is a complete thing that would easily compare to a hit-like tune. I'm sure many people pursue improvisation just because of this kind of jackpot. But also, it may sound "old".. if analyzed carefully, there might be nothing hip or even having any passage worth transcribing for later usage.

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #27

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    A link to a Musician's Institute Throwback Thursday YouTube clip. Joe Diorio discussing this topic. Begins at ~39 minute mark. Ends at ~43 minute mark. I think he gets it exactly right.


  4. #28

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    He gets to the heart of it at 40:45.

    Quote Originally Posted by gnatola
    A link to a Musician's Institute Throwback Thursday YouTube clip. Joe Diorio discussing this topic. Begins at ~39 minute mark. Ends at ~43 minute mark. I think he gets it exactly right.


  5. #29
    I bet you can whistle a tune that you just heard for the first time. If so, you are doing that by ear. That’s all I mean by “playing by ear.” Speech is also done “by ear” connected to your vocalising mechanisms...

  6. #30

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    Quote Originally Posted by gnatola
    He gets to the heart of it at 40:45.
    Well, at the risk of blowing the trumpet, I think that's what I just said. Intuition/subconscious works quicker than the intellect/conscious. But it's still memory, experience, knowledge, sensitive thought sensing a pattern, etc etc.

    And, as Beaumont said, while it may appear to be spontaneously created out of nowhere actually that's unlikely to be the case. But there is definitely luck or chance too; one might just strike a lovely lucky moment. Seldom happens when you want it to and can't be made to happen either :-)

    I've got a horrible feeling we're perilously close to that discussion about free will, etc. No, please, anything but that.

  7. #31

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    Quote Originally Posted by eh6794-2.0
    There are a few people here who advocate for playing by ear. When you play by ear with the record, you learn to emulate the player on the record, which means you pick up on his/her rhythm.
    Anyone who can actually play advocates this....

    Actually I was looking at a research paper yesterday about this very subject. Aural inputs appear to be better than written for developing improvisation.

  8. #32

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    My ideal situation is when you improvise on a tune and completely don't think of the scales or the chords involved, but just play by ear, following what you hear on the fretboard.

    Some ways i practice this are, first obviously playing over tunes i don't know, and trying to outline the changes. Another thing, when i know or learn the melody of a tune, to try to figure out the chords relative to the melody. So not only learning the melody, but hearing what degree of the current chord each note lands on, so being able to follow the root motion as well, and hearing the quality of the chords also. After a while, you improve not only on following melodic intervals, but on following chord movements as well. Then i just transpose everything in random keys, so any reference to known chords is lost, and again you deal with melodies, intervals and chord motions and resolutions.

    After a long time of doing this, i 'm at a point where if i can sing a tune or its melody, i can pretty much play it and figure out some viable ways to harmonize it on the fly. Also learning as many tunes as you can helps immensely.

  9. #33

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    My ideal situation is when you improvise on a tune and completely don't think of the scales or the chords involved, but just play by ear, following what you hear on the fretboard.

    Some ways i practice this are, first obviously playing over tunes i don't know, and trying to outline the changes. Another thing, when i know or learn the melody of a tune, to try to figure out the chords relative to the melody. So not only learning the melody, but hearing what degree of the current chord each note lands on, so being able to follow the root motion as well, and hearing the quality of the chords also. After a while, you improve not only on following melodic intervals, but on following chord movements as well. Then i just transpose everything in random keys, so any reference to known chords is lost, and again you deal with melodies, intervals and chord motions and resolutions.

    After a long time of doing this, i 'm at a point where if i can sing a tune or its melody, i can pretty much play it and figure out some viable ways to harmonize it on the fly. Also learning as many tunes as you can helps immensely.
    Yeah, I think that type of melodic improvisation is something to bear in mind. The concept of key centric, harmonically quite general, playing is natural to horns. In fact melodic improvisation within a key centre is so obvious, horn players are often hazy about changes and are advised to study piano to fill in the gaps in their harmonic knowledge. Obviously if it's your job to learn lots of melodies, you tend to improvise from a more melodic sensibility.

    But saxes and trumpet played well have a lot of sonic authority. I think for guitar this can be more difficult.

    In reply to Matt:

    Firstly, the some of most brutal criticisms I have heard of CST have come from pianists.

    Secondly, CST is easy to 'see' graphically at a keyboard. Or a vibraphone.

    Thirdly, guitar is at its heart a shapes based instrument, different to any others, even other stringed instruments. It's striking what an under utilised concept just playing out of the chord shapes is and how fresh players like Julian Lage and Peter Bernstein make that sound, but guitarists obviously spend 1,000s of hours fretboard mapping.

  10. #34

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    I can play any tune by ear!

    The problem is that what I play is likely to have some notes I don't like, especially as the harmony gets less familiar and more complex. Also, what I sing to myself tends to be fairly simple harmonically.

    So, knowing some theory is helpful. At a minimum, chord tones and tonal center. Just to help avoid clams.

    Beyond that, there are many options and I won't bother to list any in this post.

    I've posted before: jazz improv is simply thinking of a good line to play and then executing it. If you can do that without having learned any theory, like Andres Varady, that's great. If you get there partly by virtue of a standard musical education, like Jim Hall, also great. What those two have in common is that they aren't thinking theory when they play. They're creating lines intuitively, which means, by ear.

    I have a suggestion for how to practice it. IRealPro. Pick a tune. 13 choruses. Change key by a 4th each chorus. Slow enough tempo so that you can hear each change clearly. Put the phone face down. And then solo. After that gets boring, see if you can spice it up by juxtaposing the sound of a different chord against the backing track chord. I'd suggest adding that sort of thing one sound at a time, until you own it, before you try another.

  11. #35
    Quote Originally Posted by christianm77
    In reply to Matt:

    Firstly, the some of most brutal criticisms I have heard of CST have come from pianists.

    Secondly, CST is easy to 'see' graphically at a keyboard. Or a vibraphone.

    Thirdly, guitar is at its heart a shapes based instrument, different to any others, even other stringed instruments. It's striking what an under utilised concept just playing out of the chord shapes is and how fresh players like Julian Lage and Peter Bernstein make that sound, but guitarists obviously spend 1,000s of hours fretboard mapping.
    Yeah. It's interesting. After all of the "shapes" discussion of the last year or so, I've heard a few other non guitarists lately talk about "shapes" in mostly a different context. They were talking about the shape of lines relative to scale degree of the moment and the ability to transpose it to different scale degrees etc.

    They talked about visualizing shapes on the instrument, or for a lot of horn players, visualizing the piano keyboard. Ruslan talked about it in one of his YouTube videos, and I know Gary Burton talked about it that way pretty specifically. Anyway, I thought it was just kind of interesting after all of the mention of other instruments "not thinking in shapes".

    As regards the "easier to see" part, Reg has simplified that part a lot for me. The William Leavitt approach and others are way harder IMO.

  12. #36

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    Yes I have heard that... No what I specifically mean is that you have to learn actual graphical 2D chord grips. Within these chord grips the notes are not necessarily organised consecutively. For instance a basic 7th chord barre shape

    x 3 5 3 5 3

    You obviously have 1 5 7 3 (10) 5 (12). The notes are not the 1 3 5 1 3 5 pattern you find in piano arpeggios, and have a distinctive sound when arpeggiated. Not saying that piano chords & arps don't sometimes have similar voicings - but critically, the pianist is aware right away that the notes aren't laid out in this way.

    Of course many non-jazz guitarists would think 'C7' and bear it no more mind.... The task of bring the C7 into the orbit of a C7 scale and the full arpeggio is a step or two away from this basic guitaristic understanding.

    On a piano you will have shapes too, but you will know what those notes are - and critically the notes are laid out in 1D, left to right, musical objects are much more accessible conceptually.

  13. #37

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    Change key by a 4th each chorus
    Didn't even know ireal could do that! Have to check it out as it seems like a great tool!

  14. #38

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    Over-complicating things here.

    1. First and foremost, "playing by ear" or learning by ear simply means not playing or learning by referencing written music, or not playing something memorized. Beyond "not reading" it can mean not utilizing other forms of communication of the music either - like someone telling you the chord changes, etc. If you see a classical soloist play a 90-minute recital without sheet music they are neither playing by ear or improvising. They have learned the music so well that they don't need the sheet music anymore. But they read it at first, and read it 500 more times.

    2. Secondly, playing by ear does not imply improvisation, per se. Playing by ear can be playing back something that you hear like a melody and/or chord changes to a song. No more, no less. How many times have you plucked out a song without reading the music? How many times have you witnessed other musicians doing the same thing? Plenty, right? Well, that's playing by ear.

    3. That said, improvisation is played by ear (which means by the mind's ear, actually). When you improvise you are playing something new, even if it comes from patterns of hearing and performance behavior practiced over and over. When improvising you don't know what you are going to play 10 seconds from the present. But if you memorize and play your best solo to a given song, you are not improvising, and you are also not playing by ear. You are doing the same thing that the above mentioned classical player is doing. You are playing something fully formed/contained in memory.

    So, playing by ear does not imply improvisation, but improvisation does imply playing by ear.

  15. #39

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    Did you guys listen on to the Round Midnight ?

    Joe's reharms are sumptuous ain't they ?

    they sounded totally new to me


  16. #40

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    and there you have it Improviseing and playing by Ear. For me I do bouth chords and leads the same way to work up to Iproviseation I will start a common Chord Rhythm lets say Blues in E start off with a standard chord Rhythm E,A,A#,B Then move it around but using all the chords In the E Blues E,G,A,A#,B,D. Mix them up . If I want to do lead work I go thru the scale Then Mix it up it dosent sound great all the time but I learn something about my feel for what I am trying too express.

  17. #41

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    Quote Originally Posted by pingu
    so the idea that 'everything's already been played'
    is just not true .... to me
    Even a minute long song has more melodic possibilities than the number of sub atomic particles in the known universe. It would take gazillions of big bangs of time to complete playing them. But even if they somehow managed to listen to all of them, they will have to have a brain size much larger than the universe to have enough neural connectivity to store and remember them.
    Yeah right it's not true.
    Last edited by Tal_175; 02-26-2019 at 09:40 PM.

  18. #42

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tal_175
    Even a minute long song has more melodic possibilities than the number of sub atomic particles in the known universe.
    So even if one has heard all 1 minute long songs. It would take gazillions of big bangs of time to complete playing them. But even if they somehow managed to listen to all of them, they will have to have a brain size much larger than the universe to have enough neural connectivity to store and remember them.
    Yeah right it's not true.
    Yeah ain't it great !

  19. #43

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    Didn't even know ireal could do that! Have to check it out as it seems like a great tool!
    If you click the teacher button, you'll see the options.

    There's also a mix option which allows you to raise or lower the volume of each instrument. So, you can practice with just bass, for example.

    There are lots of rhythm styles available too -- and you can have a click or not.

    It's a well thought out tool. Seems like a bargain at 10 bucks. I'm recommending it, but I have no financial involvement with it. I paid full price.

  20. #44

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    Quote Originally Posted by Alter
    My ideal situation is when you improvise on a tune and completely don't think of the scales or the chords involved, but just play by ear, following what you hear on the fretboard.
    I'd say playing by ear is the ONLY way to really improvise. Any cognitive effort when improvising simply indicates that you don't know the tune or the tune is still too hard for you. The chord/scale relationship is for studying only. When you go out there you just play the changes without thinking. If you can't, you're in the wrong tune.

    I don't even think the whole theory thing is necessary for studying. It works for some and does not for others. I have always had little interest in it. Only in my first years it helped me some.

    DB

  21. #45

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    Oh, one more comment about "by ear" vs "old & learned".
    When learning to improvise for a tune by ear, it may take days or weeks but the first that happens is this: the fingers start to follow a known path. If lazy, they don't really wanna do anything else for a while.. until it gets very annoying and got to take chances. Have to push outside from the comfort zone.

    This case - "by ear" is completely happening because I literally have no clue what key I'm in, it's just right. "old & learned" is there with the lazy pathways.

  22. #46

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    Actually, the phrase 'play by ear' doesn't mean anything supernatural, it just means to play something without needing the music. After all that.

    There's also the savants' trick of being able to reproduce a whole piece after only hearing it once or twice. I believe Mozart could do that, but that is slightly supernatural :-)

    Play by ear - Idioms by The Free Dictionary

  23. #47

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    There are professional musicians who are extremely good at audiation. You know, look at a score, hear it in their head.

    It’s not that unusual for those who grew up reading music and have developed their inner ear.

    Practically anyone can improve their skills in this area. We can all hear music internally to some extent. The thing is develop and extend that skill.

    Can you imagine for instance the sound and fingerings of playing the guitar away from the guitar?

  24. #48

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    Something I find useful is this.

    Pick a tune and play the chords while you scat sing a solo. After one or two bars, play the melody you just sang. Then, play the next few chords and sing some more. Maybe go back to the beginning and play the whole thing up to the point you're at.

    When I do this I generally end up playing something I wouldn't play if I didn't sing first. The sung lines tend to be more melodic. I also find out what I can really hear -- vs. intervals that I'm finding mechanically. That give me a better idea what to work on for ear training.
    Last edited by rpjazzguitar; 02-27-2019 at 04:24 PM.

  25. #49

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    Also, Glenn Campbell. Couldn't read a note but his ears were SO good he was still able to be a top session guitarist.

  26. #50

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    When a pianist plays a pitch, he probably knows it's name - if he know their names he can't help but know their names when he plays them; he feels the keys and knows which are black and white, and within those which ones. When a trumpeter plays a pitch he probably knows it's name, but even if not he knows that pitch distinctly based on his lip level and depression pattern of the valves that produces that pitch. Violins and cellos use set positions from which they know the names of the pitches fingered. Even if any of these musicians did not learn to read music or did not learn the names of the pitches on their instrument, they still know "that pitch" distinctly from others based on the specific mechanics of how it is produced. Same with woodwind fingering of holes and key pads.

    Guitar is about the only instrument upon which one may play a chord or note and truly not know it's name or its distinctness from other notes as described above, because except for open strings and harmonics, once you are playing up the neck each pitch is produced in the same way with string and fret.

    Playing by ear for other instruments still includes the distinct identification of individual pitches based in the intrinsic mechanics of those instruments. Guitar has the potential of being played more truly by ear because in spite of knowing the pitch names; if you don't look, you can not know.

    Similarly, a pianist feels and distinguishes the black and white keys, and notices "three flats" and so knows the song's key. Trumpet and sax will also discern their mechanical fingering of flats and sharps, and so recognize the key (even if they don't know about key signatures they will recognize "that pattern").

    The guitarist can play a whole tune perfectly and never think about which pitches are really accidentals (the key of the song).

    My point is that in a discussion of playing by ear, as guitarists we need to know about this fundamental difference and implications of this mechanical difference between the guitar and the other instruments.